FOR CHRIST'S SAKE
Colossians 1:15-20
Acts 1:1-11
"Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their
sight?"
The phrase "for Christ's sake" trips off the
tongue of Western secular society with such regularity in conversation, movies
or on TV, that it must now be one of the
most often used expletives in the English-speaking world. I googled the phrase to check it out and
discovered some interesting information, including a movie entitled "For
Christ's Sake" and something called "For Christ's Sake Torrent."
which I decided did not warrant further investigation. Otherwise there was not much more beyond the
obvious and the pious. Together with
"for God's sake" or "for goodness sake," "for Christ
sake" has long been used to express annoyance and frustration, but now it
seems it is the trendy thing to say in certain circles. Some might regard this as blasphemy, which it
undoubtedly is, but I think it has just become another one of those expressions
people unthinkingly use to express their gut feelings about such things as the outcome
of the British election or the inept playing of the Sharks Rugby team. In any case, most Christians have long
acknowledged that you do not react of blasphemy by beheading or imprisoning
those guilty of it; it is both unnecessary -- for Christ does not need our
defence -- and counter-productive, because he taught us to love our enemies,
even those who speak ill of him.
Two weeks ago I referred to the comment made by
Dietrich Bonhoeffer that the problem with the church is that Jesus too often
disappears from sight. Jesus is lost in
the institution or dogma so instead of the world seeing him at work in the
world through the life of his followers, he is hidden from view. They might
even say "for Christ's sake, why don't you Christians truly follow
Jesus?!" And they would be making a
good point in saying so. Like the Greeks
who came to Jesus' disciples long ago and asked to see him, there are people
today who might follow Jesus if it were not for the fact that Christianity and
the church seem to get in the way, or so they say. For there is certainly
another side to the story.
Today is Ascension Day, so those familiar with the story as told at the
beginning of the Acts of the Apostles might well ask "is this not what
happened precisely that first Ascension Day?
Do we not read in the opening chapter of Acts that while his disciples
were watching, "Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their
sight?" Yes, you could say the
Ascension is all about Jesus disappearing from sight! But it is really about
Jesus entering into a new dimension of reality, no less real than when he was
with his disciples during his earthly life.
Only now he is Jesus the Christ of faith. But who is this Christ in whom
we believe?
"Christ" is the Greek translation of the
Hebrew word "Messiah" which means "the Lord's
anointed." It was a word used to
refer to kings like David in ancient Israel whom God anointed to lead and guide
his people. It was even used to describe
the pagan ruler Cyrus who allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem from
exile in Babylon. And it was used by the
prophets in anticipating the one who would come to redeem Israel from all its
enemies and bring in the reign of justice and peace. After the resurrection of Jesus his followers
came to believe that he was truly this promised Messiah or Christ, the promised
anointed one through whose death and resurrection God would established his
reign of righteousness on earth. This
was the good news they were now commissioned to preach to the world.
So Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, begins by telling
us that in the gospel he previously wrote he recorded " all that Jesus did
and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to
heaven." In his second volume we
call the Acts of the Apostles, he continues the story of Jesus, but now it is
about all that Jesus did through his
followers after his Ascension and the gift of his Spirit at Pentecost. In other words, Acts is the continuation of Jesus'
story, but in a new mode of being in the world.
Instead of Jesus being confined to the hills of Galilee and the streets
of Jerusalem, he is universally present
in every time and place through his Spirit.
But the word "Christ" now has meanings it
did not have before. First of all, the
Christ is the One who was humiliated and who suffered to redeem the world. In other words the meaning of the word
Christ is now defined by the life and passion of Jesus. To understand the Christ we have to remember
the story of Jesus, all that he said and did.
But then there is another shift in the understanding of who Christ truly
is as depicted in the writings of Paul and John in the New Testament and soon
in the icons of the Church. Paul speaks of the cosmic Christ in whom
"all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell," in fact, the one through
whom "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things." This is breathtaking stuff. The Jesus of Nazareth with whom the disciples
had walked and talked, the Jewish Messiah, is now understood as the Lord of
life, "the image of the invisible God...in whom all things hold
together." He is, according to
John's Gospel, "the living Word" through whom the world was made, the
Word who is the light of the world.
Many thinking people have a problem with this astounding
claim because they think it means that Christianity is therefore the only true
religion. But that is to miss the point.
In the light of the Ascension, Christianity does not have a special claim
on Jesus and therefore on God. Jesus the
Christ does not belong to his disciples.
Jesus as the Christ is not ours, not the possession of the church. Jesus as the cosmic Christ transcends
Christianity and all other religions. Through
his Spirit he is at work everywhere healing and making whole, serving the poor
and setting the oppressed free, working
for justice, peace and reconciliation. Wherever there is hope and love, there
is the cosmic Christ, the fullness of God, present through the Spirit even
though he may be known by other names. Yes,
there are many people who are not Christian who are doing the things Jesus even
if not in his name. And they are doing
so because the cosmic Christ is universally at work reconciling the world to
God through his Spirit.
So on Ascension Day we declare that Jesus the Christ
is the cosmic Lord and giver of life, not that he is the founder of
Christianity. He is the one in and
through whom we are reconciled to each other and to God, the One in and through
whom we are made whole. This is the good
news we proclaim for the sake of the whole world. Through his Spirit we witness through our
lives and deed to what the cosmic Christ is doing in the world, and we do so
"for Christ's sake."
John de Gruchy
Volmoed
14 May 2015 Ascension Day
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